Expansion of Content Literacy in Middle and High Schools Classrooms

The purpose of the proposed project is to refine and expand the Content Literacy program, a model program to ensure that adolescent students develop critical and powerful literacy skills so that they succeed during their middle and high school careers and into postsecondary education. The program, funded for initial development by the CPE during 2004-05, has shown significant promise, and schools are requesting larger scale participation in the work. Through the project, teachers learn fundamentals of content literacy - an integrated literacy approach to help students learn rigorous academic content. In an intensive professional development program, new participants develop and hone strategic approaches to support student learning and create cultures where their students are successful and reflecti ve leamers. Retuming teachers continue to refine their content literacy skills and respond to student needs in a systems structure designed to ensure accountability and application of concepts and strategies. Expansion of the project includes all 6th and 9th grade teachers from each school, 7'h and loth grade teachers at some schools, and adding two new schools. During Summer Institutes, new teachers will partIcipate in an intensive, fiveday session facilitated by the Collaborative for Teaching and Learning (CTL), where they will study and dIscuss current research and learn and practice strategies for classroom application. Returning teachers will join this work for three days, working in teams to systematically plan standards-based units of study that integrate content literacy approaches and ensure a comprehensive approach to student learning. During the school year, teachers engage in regular coaching with CTL. This Job-embedded coaching begll1s with a meeting during the first month of the year where teachers display early products of their work. Coaching continues throughout the year, with teachers receiving feedback through reflection on student work, modeling of strategies, and professional readings and discussion. Teachers also engage in a distance network, facilitated by university Kentucky il I,I ilIII ,Ii III 1.1 1 II· ~ Writing Project leadership, and focused on building professional dialogue about concepts and application. Finally, a new leadership strand will be implemented to build an internal literacy leadership structure that can maintain teacher motivation and progress between program coaching visits. This internal leadership structure also better ensures that the program approach will be sustained over time. The University of Kentucky Collaborative Center for Literacy Development (CCLD) will act as princIpal investigator for the work. They will conduct pre- and post-assessments of teacher knowledge and practice through both formal assessments and classroom observations, pre- and post-assessments of student knowledge through use of formal reading assessments, and surveys of changes in teacher and student attitudes and beliefs.